Page 106 of Kiwi Gold
“Laila.” He took me in his arms and held me, and we stood there a minute, rocking together. “Sorry,” he said. “I’m a bit on edge myself, maybe.”
“The contract,” I said. “I haven’t even asked you.”
“Nothing to say,” he said, then moved away from me again and finished stacking the pillows at the head of the bed. “Nothing to do. Never mind. On to the next proposal, that’s all.”
I hesitated, and then I said it. “Are you thinking, somehow, that it makes you less … less attractive to me? I’m thinking of what my dad said,” I went on when he looked up and didn’t answer. “About why he sold his sperm.”
“I’m notthatdesperate,” he said, but he was smiling, at least. “Not looking to field any blond cricket teams made up of my mystery kids.”
I laughed, he grinned, and that was better. “I know that,” I said. “Just that he told me how desperatehewas, not able to give my mum the life he’d promised her, even though I know she wouldn’t have thought less of him. What’s life without a little adversity? Never mind, because I don’t know the answer. But I wanted to tell you—I don’t love you for that. For your success. Anyway, it would hardly be fair, would it?Yourbath tiles aren’t falling on your head. And don’t tell me men are different,” I went on when he would have spoken. “That they care more about the success part.”
“I’ve got nothing to say, then,” he said, “because, sorry, but I think menaredifferent. At least I am.” Which was when the kids had woken up and the conversation had ended.
And, yes, I’d said “love.” I was careening down the track on a runaway roller-coaster car, and I wouldn’t have stopped it even if I could have. It was alternately terrifying and exhilarating. Part of me wanted to tell myself to pull back now, because the crash this time could break me, but the other part knew it was impossible. I was going to have to ride it out.
Now, I walked with him into the house my mum had designed, and the girls rushed in after us, shouting, “Grandad!” And then skidded to the kind of sudden stop you’d normally see in a cartoon, because my dad was holding a laughing baby. Nine months, maybe, and my dad looked like he’d been waiting five years to do this again.
“My niece,” Lachlan said in my ear. “Lark’s youngest. Thea.”
“Grandad,” Amira said, climbing up onto a stool at the breakfast bar beside him. “Why do you have a thing on your nose? Why do you have a baby?”
“I hurt my nose, and she’s your cousin,” Baba said. “Another granddaughter for me, eh, and wee Claire here, too. Lark is the kids’ mum, and your auntie, and all the others here are your aunties and uncles, too. Heaps of new family. Say hello.”
* * *
Lachlan
And my sisters saidIwas too direct.
I didn’t even have to look to see my mum stiffening up. “Is this how we’re doing it, then, Mum?” I asked. Probably not the most polite way of proceeding, but here we were, in a spectacular house on some of the most expensive land in Dunedin, with curved white walls and enormous windows and smooth, high-end surfaces, with an enormous stone-flagged patio surrounded by lush landscaping out the bifold doors that stood open to the outdoors and views out over the hills and the harbor and practically to the sea, and my mum was out of her place, possibly out of her league, and looked nothing but defensive.
This was complicated. Laila, the girls, my sisters, my mum … The combinations and permutations, as with all groups once they start getting large enough, were exponential.
Lark said, “No, it’s not. It’s rushing our fences, surely. We need to negotiate the terms of our new arrangement.”
Drake snorted and handed Thea another piece of banana. “We’re not doing a merger. We’re becoming a family.”
“We’re not a family,” my mum said. “You’re their sperm donor.” She was looking regal today in a slim-fitting, sleeveless, electric-blue dress that showed off her toned, tanned arms and legs, her hair falling straight around her shoulders as usual. I suspected her presentation ticked all the “sinful” boxes to Drake, and I’ll admit I was glad of it. Complicated feelings all over the shop.
“A sperm donor is when you give the lady your sperm to make a baby,” Amira saw fit to inform everybody. “But you don’t put your penis in their vagina.”
“Amira!” Laila said.
“Yasmintoldme,” Amira said. “And Lachlan told me, too! Lachlan slept in the bed with Mummy and Yasmin and me,” she decided to inform her grandfather next. “And Long John slept on the bed, too. It was very crowded.”
Laila had her hand on her hair and was taking some deep breaths. Either coming down with the bot herself, or trying to sort out how to tackle this. She’d explained today’s lunch to the girls beforehand, but more along the lines of, “Lachlan’s sisters and their kids,” not “aunties and cousins,” and definitely not “grandchildren.” And as for the “sperm donor” idea? She hadn’t mentioned that at all. It looked like time for another talk.
Drake said, “That’s enough out of you, Amira. You girls go show Claire the playroom.”
“But—” Amira began.
“March,” Drake said.
“But Grandad,” Amira persisted. “Why do you have a baby? Yasmin and me are supposed to sit in your lap! You’reourgrandad!”
Laila said, “Come on, girls. We’ll go show Claire the playroom and all the toys, and I’ll explain.” She shot a look at me as she went, and I could read that look exactly as well as I had when she’d needed me to drive her dad home.Help me,it said, but this time, I wasn’t sure how.
My mum said, as soon as the girls were out of the room—it took a fair while, because it was an open-plan space, and it was enormous—“You haven’t explained to them, then, Torsten.”
